Regulary updated information about Peter and the other defendants from Harrisonburg as well as a report and pictures of their action can be found on the webpage of the SOA Watch Harrisonburg, VA Chapter

Peter Gelderloos, 19, was born in Morristown, New Jersey, and grew up in Tokyo, Japan; Seoul, Korea; and Vienna, Virginia. He has also lived in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and now lives in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Peter was studying literature, foreign languages, and anthropology at James Madison University in Harrisonburg for one and a half years until he dropped out this spring. Now he is trying to write for a living. He has been occasionally published in local and national activist publications. Peter organized with the Anti-Capitalist Convergence for the S29 Anti-War protests in Washington, DC, and attended the WEF protests in NYC and the A20 protests in DC as a demonstrator and journalist. He was involved in student organizing in high school, and he has been active with Students Against Sweatshops, and the Human Rights Society of Uzbekistan. He created a boys? program for the campus feminist organization?s youth empowerment program, and he helped start the Harrisonburg Food Not Bombs and the 181 Collective Space, an anarchist community center in Harrisonburg. He is currently co-founding Signal Fire, an activist website for non-activists.

Peter was arrested on Ft. Benning with the group of seven protestors who presented the base with an indictment for violating federal and international law. He hopes his trial will encourage more people to make the sacrifice necessary to abolish the School of the Americas, and all such military programs, and every other institution founded on the rule of coercive force and the order of stratified societies.

The Flower

Yellow rose from pastures cut,
and given me by her hands,
and in my hands I held it, till
the time came
and I tucked it safely away,
close to my skin,

as we clasped hands
and crossed the line.
Metal cuffs ensnared these wrists
that tender fingers once encircled.
Pulled about roughly on the ground
I felt the flower crushed

under my hip and later,
both hands behind my back and reaching
for some hope I pulled out only petals.
When rough hands emptied my pockets
the petals fell like yellow tears
and were trampled on the jailhouse floor.